Still a ‘banner year’ for some biotechs, but consumer stocks trail

With second-quarter earnings largely in the books, why not take a look at the biggest winners and losers for the calendar year to date?

Bespoke Investment Group did just that in a blog post, running through the 40 biggest winners and losers in the S&P 500, as well as the top performers in the broader Russell 3000. (You can see truncated versions of their tables above and below, or read the whole thing here.)

Of note, there are no 100% gainers in the S&P 500 as of the end of business on Monday. And it will take some big advances over the remainder of the year for the S&P gauge to register any “doubles”, Bespoke notes.

If that seems like an eclectic list, it is. Bespoke notes that all 10 S&P 500 sectors are represented on the list, albeit with only one utilities firm — Pepco Holdings
/quotes/zigman/238082/delayed/quotes/nls/pepPEP — in the mix, at No. 12 with a 40.46% gain.

Overall, 17 of the 40 biggiest losers are either consumer discretionary or consumer staple names, Bespoke found. That leaves investors looking to back-to-school activity and the holiday season to turn things around, its analysts said. They note that, historically, holiday season hasn’t been a great time to hold retailers, “but given their performance so far this year, maybe we’ll see a divergence from the normal seasonal stock trends.”

The list of winners in the Russell 3000, meanwhile, is dominated by biotech names, with 14 out of the 40 top stocks in the health-care sector, Bespoke notes. While biotech got whacked in March and April, and the group as a whole still hasn’t taken out its highs from earlier this year, “there are still plenty of names in biotech that are having banner years,” its analysts said.

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